Angel Cop: Brand Advertisement

A long time ago, way back in the 90's, I recall my dear friend Daniel telling me that he had seen a Japanese animation called Angel Cop. Never had heard of it before. I don't know if he was being polite to the owner of the VHS fansub, but his impression was sort of positive. Daniel, WTF? When you're young, many times you enjoy bad stuff for lack of reference. He still hadn't begun his love for trash media while being brainwashed by hours of the most ridiculous infomercials selling stupid Ginsu knives, Vivarina pantyhoses, etc. Fucking Tony Little. Anyway, I also hadn't seen much anime, but I already thought that stuff like Genocyber and M.D.Geist were extremely lame and stupid.

I recently watched Angel Cop for the first time. My impression was that someone was trying to rip-off Ghost in the Shell in the most imbecilic possible way. For an entertaining review, checkout episode 57 of the AWO podcast. Daryl Surat suggested watching it with subtitles once, then with the dub, and then with dub + subs to compare. I really don't have the guts nor the time to try them all, so I watched just the dub with the subs on. OMFG. This anime already has one of the stupidest plots ever made, the dub manages to somehow make it even worse.

Angel Cop has one of the weirdest brand advertisements I've ever seen in my life. Raiden is a special agent turned into a cyborg. During a fight in the fifth episode, he takes this laser shooting device from within his metal hand. There is a quick close-up as seen below. What the hell?

Detroit Metal City

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain poster featured on the episode 4A of Studio 4°C's comedy, Detroit Metal City. Link to the original poster.

Touch

Summer of 42 (1971) poster found on the sixth episode of Touch, a 1985 romance/baseball TV series. Asakura Minami asks if Uesugi Katsuya, her childhood friend, wants to watch the film with her. Unfortunately he already has a date. Below is a quick montage for a better view I did. This is the original poster.


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On episode 44, Tatsuya and Minami are going to a movie theater together. On their way, there is a billboard of Cocoon (1985). Link to the original poster.

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On episode 54, classes end for that year. Tatsuya and Minami agree to watch a movie that just premiered, The Natural (1984). In front of the theater, a poster of Roman Holiday (1953).


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Below is an image from the 1998 movie Touch: Miss Lonely Yesterday. The outdoor on the left named River is a reference to Six Days, Seven Nights (1998).

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Another image from the Miss Lonely Yesterday movie. It's written Summer of Angels, obvious reference to City of Angels (1998). The drawing of Nicolas Cage looks like Thom Yorke.

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On episode 33, the new transfer student, Yoshida Takeshi, lends Uesugi Tatsuya an LP. Released in 1985, Half Time was Yoshimi Iwasaki's 13th album. It contained Touch's first opening (タッチ) and ending (君がいなければ) themes. Jacket of the album.


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On episode 35, Tatsuya goes to Yoshida's house where he spots what I believe is Iwasaki Yoshimi's 20th single, タッチ.


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On episode 45, Yoshida is talking to some girls about a record he is holding. It's Yoshimi's 14th album, タッチ.

Gattai!! AWO x Mazinger

The image on the left is just a silly thing I did while brainstorming Anime World Order logo options. Usually all models are done on paper first, but at that point I had already conveyed all my ideas into bits. The original idea came from this link. Apparently the AWO crew are enjoying the new TV show, Shin Mazinger Shogeki! Z-Hen.

On their show they once questioned why is anime directly associated with mecha, a genre not so popular nowadays. Giant robots are to anime what western is to American cinema. While American animation has an incredibly strong link to slapstick humor, Japanese animation has a powerful bond to science fiction. Even if moe dominates the market today, over 50 years of mecha won't be forgotten so easily. We hope.

Nothing related, but did anyone ever notice a similarity between the opening of Cyber City Oedo 808, Burning World 〜追憶のコマンド〜, and Flashdance's What a Feeling?